Saturday’s sprint race was a disappointment for Maverick Viñales who lacked feeling as he had to adapt to a new bike set up during the race. After a late night of work and a productive warm up this morning, Top Gun headed to the grid in 19th place, as he moved up by one position with Miguel Oliveira out. Lights were out at 15:00 LT for 25 laps of show. Maverick kept his line on the left to arrive in T1 on the outside and T2 on the inside, while an incident involving Marco Bezzecchi and Fabio Quartararo saw him progress to 18th, behind Somkiat Chantra. Meanwhile, the Marquez brothers had already stolen the show, both sprinting into the race lead. One more position was gained with teammate Enea Bastianini pushed wide by Raul Fernandez, and on lap 3, Viñales could overtake Thai rookie Chantra to move up to 16th, at the doors of the point-scoring positions. Fernandez’ long lap penalty gave Maverick the opportunity to sit in P15 behind Firmin Aldeguer. Progressively, the number 12 closed the gap on the rookie, until he was just 0.183 seconds behind the #54, after 8 laps. However, there was pressure coming from behind, with Fabio Quartararo progressively closing the gap. Eventually, Maverick found a space to go past Firmin on lap 14 in the first sector. That overtake unlocked Top Gun who quickly grew a decent gap on Aldeguer, to now find himself 0.6 seconds from Jack Miller. Riding with much more confidence in the second half of the race, the Red Bull KTM Tech3 rider was closer than ever to Miller, and he found the path to overtake the Aussie on lap 19 to progress to 12th, now 0.7 seconds off Alex Rins. As just 5 laps remained, Top Gun settled in that position until the checkered flag to score his first points with the team, but most importantly to head to the next round in Austin with a much better feeling on his new RC16.

Enea Bastianini was a very unfortunate man on Sunday in Termas. Starting from P20, the Italian took a rocket start and gained six positions in one lap to exit lap 1 in 14th behind Raul Fernandez. Soon, he moved past the Trackhouse rider in the next lap to P13, but a pride move of the #25 who produced an aggressive exit of T9, pushed Enea wide and forced him to crash in the grass. Bestia quickly got up to rejoin the race, but he was last, 12 seconds from the last, who was Fabio Quartararo. The next lap, Fabio moved past rookie Chantra, and we now had Bastianini with just one goal, making up for the lost time on the LCR rider. Lap after lap, Bastianini was gaining back time, on average 0.1 secs per lap. Halfway through the race, he was already 7.3 seconds from Chantra, providing the extra effort with strong lap times to make it up. It was a lonely race for the Italian rider, but he had now completely reduced the gap at 3 laps from the checkered flag, 0.107 seconds from Chantra. Eventually, lap 23 for the number 23 was the right one, and Bastianini overtook the Thai rookie to see the checkered flag in P17. Unfortunate one for the Red Bull KTM Tech3 rider who had produced a great effort in the opening lap.

That’s it for round 2 of the 2025 MotoGP™ World Championship, it was a pleasure being back racing in Termas de Río Hondo. We will next head to Texas for the Grand Prix of the Americas, a Grand Prix both Maverick Viñales and Enea Bastianini have won in the premier class, and we hope that it will give them confidence heading to the next round.